The Stone Circle

Mitchell's Fold Stone Circle was constructed in the Bronze Age, over 3,000 years ago, using dolerite stones from nearby Stapeley Hill.

View of one of the standing stone in the neolithic monument © English Heritage Today there are fifteen stones, arranged in a rough circle, but there may once have been as many as thirty. Much of this damage is ancient.

The tallest stone was once one of a pair, and these would have formed an impressive entrance into the circle. It is thought that there may also have been a central stone.

We do not fully understand why stone circles were built, but it is clear that they were ritually important for prehistoric people. They may have provided a focus for funerary rites, or perhaps had a calendrical function, with carefully aligned stones marking important lunar or solar events.

Mitchell's Fold is just one of a remarkable number of prehistoric monuments in the surrounding landscape; there are also two other stone circles, a long barrow and numerous cairns. Nearby was the important Bronze Age axe factory at Cwm Mawr, where distinctive axe-hammers were produced and traded extensively into central Wales and England.